India-US to ink MoU for LIGO project
India and the United States will sign an MoU to build a state-of-the-art Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) project.
The agreement, between the US’s National Science Foundation (NSF) and India's Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) and Department of Science and Technology (DST), will be inked during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the USA on March 31 and April 1.
As part of the agreement, the scientists of NSF, DAE and DST will form a Joint Oversight Group (JOG) for better coordination of the project. They will hold a meeting on April 10 to discuss and decide the project site for setting up the laboratory.
The Prime Minister is on a two-day visit to USA to attend the 4th Nuclear Security Summit in Washington D.C. He is scheduled to meet the scientists of LIGO project as well as hold a bilateral meeting with the US President Barack Obama on the side-lines of the summit.
“I look forward to my interaction with the scientists associated with LIGO project,” Modi had said prior to his departure on a three-nation visit.
DAE secretary Sekhar Basu will sign the MoU in the US on Thursday.
Last month, the Indian government had given an approval for the LIGO-India project and for the establishment of a gravitational wave observatory in India.
With the construction of the project - an eight kilometre beam tube at ultra-high vacuum - India will become the third country in the world to have the LIGO project.
to success.